Dear Liza: My best friend of 26 years would like to write up a will. She has a 5 year old daughter, whom does not have a god mother. Both of my best friends parents are dead and the daughters father is not in her life, nor has he been since her birth. My best friend asked my husband and I if we would be her daughters “guardian” if anything should happen to her. We were honored and happily accepted! The problem is, how do we word the will so it is legal?

The good news is that it’s pretty easy to write a valid Will. There are not a lot of hidden ‘gotcha’s’ in doing a Will (unlike a living trust, as you can see from the blog post immediately before this one). Your friend should go to www.nolo.com and use their simple online Will, or purchase WillMaker software, or purchase or go to the library and get a Nolo book like, Nolo’s SImple Will Book, and use their suggested language. Your friend needs to say that she wants you and your husband to serve as the guardians of her minor child and that her child’s biological father is not part of her daughter’s life, and that placement with him would not be in the child’s best interest.

Both of you need to know that she is only nominating you two to serve in her Will — if your friend were to die, a judge would ultimately have to make the guardianship appointment in the best interest of the daughter. A judge will certainly try and honor a parent’s nomination via a
Will, but when there’s a living parent out there, unless they’ve legally abandoned that child (which this father may in fact have done), a judge has to take their parental rights into account as well. If that parent doesn’t want to take custody of the child, the court can certainly also appoint a guardian without severing that parent’s parental rights.

The bottom line is GET THAT WILL DONE. Writing down her wishes for her daughter is the best way your daughter can try and make sure that the right people take care of her daughter if she can’t.

She should sign the Will in front of two witnesses who don’t benefit from the Will in any way. And all of these self-help resources can walk you through the process.

About Liza Weiman Hanks

Liza is an attorney who specializes in estate planning for families of all ages. She is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust, and Probate Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. A graduate of Stanford Law School, she has also served as an instructor at the Santa Clara University Law School and practiced with the state of California and a prestigious Silicon Valley firm. Liza is also the author of Busy Family's Guide to Estate Planning: 10 Steps to Peace of Mind. She lives with her family in Campbell, California.